Free

Irfanview – Nearly a staple in graphics software. Small and powerful, not only can this program view dozens of file formats and media types, it can take screenshots, crop images, adjust colors, bulk rename and convert files, grayscale, works with red eye, reads EXIF data and even works as a thumbnail viewer. And best of all, the power and usability won’t cost you anything; it’s free
www.irfanview.com

FastStone Image Viewer – Until recently I’ve been using the free version of Firehand Ember as my thumbnail viewer of choice. However, that program is no longer supported and the features in the free version are pretty anemic. FastStone Image Viewer has all the functions of the full version of Ember but still remains free. It’s a fast image viewer that does a lot more. It can crop, rotate, remove red eye, adjust colors, resize, sharpen and load your image into an external editor. This is my new choice for scanning through my images. It’s fast, efficient and loaded with features.
www.faststone.org

FastStone Photo Resizer – Another free tool from FastStone that allows you to resize and watermark your photos en masse. Very handy for scaling images for use on a website, blog, or photo hosting site. I first used this last year at the Porsche Parade to resize and watermark the images before they got uploaded to the site. We marked each photo with the event the picture was taken from, the photographers name and the year. You can use it as a simple way to get your name and website on all your photos. It’s easy to use and very fast.
www.faststone.org

Low Cost

Paint Shop Pro – While it isn’t free, this is my choice in editing software. Yes there are free programs like Gimp and Paint.NET but I haven’t worked with those. GIMP actually confused me when I did give it a try.

I’ve been using Paint Shop since the 2.0 days. I actually remember the 3.x upgrade which swapped out DLL’s to make it a 32-bit application. It’s always been easy to use and full of features. It supports layers, sharpening, masks, palettes and dozens of drawing tools. I use it for all my web editing because of it’s ease. It’s not Photoshop, but at $40-50 (if you wait for a special) it’s cheaper than Elements and in my opinion just as good.

The only real drawback is the RAW support, which in actually is pretty non-existent. The serious amateur will find this a pretty glaring limitation. However, I counteract this with Lightroom which handles the job nicely.
www.corel.com

Adobe Lightroom – Probably the next generation in photo editing. Adobe took all the power of Photoshop and actually made it easy to use. Using the simple sliders you can see exactly how your adjustments are going to look in real time. I’ve been able to drastically correct images that were too dark, overexposed, and had clipped highlights. It can’t work miracles but it does a fantastic job or tweaking images. Plus, it’s probably the best choice in RAW converters on the market today. Additionally it’s a great image catalog program that can find, sort and organize those thousands of images you have. It’s not cheap, but it’s far less than Photoshop and so much easier to use. Plus if you shop around you can find quite a few deals online.
www.adobe.com

Probably Not

DxO Optics Pro – I still have mixed feelings about this program. On the one hand it does a great job with restoring highlights and correcting images. And it has a good RAW importer. On the other, the lens support for many models is totally lacking; only two of the Sigma lenses I use are actually supported even though they have been on the market for years and are supported for previous models of Canon cameras. I also don’t like the anti-piracy measures used which makes bogus registry keys and fake files all over the drive. I think this shows a complete disregard for a user’s machine.

I reloaded this program after the upgrade because I still use it, but I haven’t upgraded to the latest version and I have doubts I will. Looking forward, this is probably the only version of this program I’ll buy. Lightroom will take over these duties and will be my main RAW converter and image enhancement tool. Maybe later versions of DxO will be better, and if they are I would be happy to look at it again and consider the upgrade. But for now, there is too much lacking for my model of camera and many of the features can be found in other apps.

The costs of the applications, set to reach consumers in October, haven’t changed since CS3, but remain hefty. Should longtime users upgrade?

Of course that depends on the specific tools you need. However, we suspect that only the most well-heeled will jump at the chance, as CS4 shares the majority of tools with its predecessor. Perhaps more dramatic, life-changing alterations will come with the next Creative Suite. That said, time-saving tweaks to Illustrator and Flash in particular could lure professionals immersed in them to upgrade.

Adobe releases Creative Suite 4

I have no doubt Adobe will come through this, but it’s troubling to see them in such a vulnerable position.

While developers are scrambling to meet deadlines, on the other end of the building, Adobe executives are applauding their company’s financial performance, with revenue for its fiscal third quarter ending last month coming in at $1 million above the high side of projections, at $887.2 million — a gain of 4% over the previous year’s third quarter.

Behind the applause, though, were some negative signs: Operating income was down about 14% annually, to $219 million. The bad economy was not to blame here: Operating expenses were generally higher — by about 10% annually — margins (GAAP) declined by about 5% in the last year to 24.7%, and the balance sheet shows a $350 million debt maturity during the quarter.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 launches next week, could only help earnings

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Lightroom, Photoshop

Adobe’s Lightroom 2.0, which launched today represents a major breakthrough in the field of digital photo processing. I’ve only just begun to play with the software today, but it is clear that Lightroom 2.0 will be my new imaging software of choice. Prior to using Lightroom 2.0 I did my photo processing using Adobe’s Bridge and Photoshop. Lightroom represents a significant leap forward in the power of processing digital photographs. I thought I’d write up a post documenting my 10 new favorite processing tools that Lightroom 2.0 brings to the table.

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection: The 10 Best Things About the New Adobe Lightroom 2.0

Adobe has officially released Photoshop Lightroom 2, following three months of beta testing for the photo management software. It is Adobe’s first product supporting 64-bit Windows Vista and OS X.

Lightroom 2 is available now for $299 USD, or $99 USD as an upgrade from the previous release. This workflow enhancing software is billed as “the professional photographer’s essential toolbox,” and is geared toward users working with large volumes of photos.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 brings 64-bit compatibility

Users of the next Adobe Creative Suite may be able to mix and mash up the applications with online content and third-party tools.

In a bid to make workspaces more nimble, Adobe Systems is considering making parts of Photoshop and other Creative Suite applications available for users to manipulate within Flash widgets, according to a blog post Monday by John Nack, product manager of Photoshop.

Next Photoshop widget-happy?

Adobe’s Digital Negative specification, also known as the DNG format, was updated Tuesday, as the company pushes it to become a unified standard for working with raw photographic images taken by digital cameras.

Adobe updates DNG photo format, adds Vista support

Adobe have submitted the DNG (Digital Negative) RAW file format to the ISO as a proposed new standard, according to Adobe’s John Nack.

Adobe DNG was first released a couple of years ago, but has struggled to gain real traction with most camera manufacturers, who continue to use their own proprietary formats.

DNG submitted as ISO standard

“I can’t imagine doing serious imaging anywhere other than Adobe, but, I needed to do something other than imaging for a while.”

If you were hired by Microsoft to make the Windows experience less annoying, what would be on your to-do list?

Mark Hamburg, the Adobe Photoshop/LightRoom guru recently hired by Microsoft, is tasked with figuring out how to improve the way Microsoft’s operating system works.

Hamburg didn’t recently join Microsoft to work on SmartFlow, Microsoft’s alleged competitor to LightRoom, as I guessed yesterday. Instead, he’s working on future OS interface concepts, according to a posting on the ProPhotoHome blog that a reader forwarded to me. According to the post:

What would you change (first) about Windows’ look and feel?

What’s Microsoft want with Adobe Photoshop guru Mark Hamburg, who recently joined the Redmond juggernaut?

Hamburg a programmer who has been part of the Adobe Photoshop team since version 2.0 and helped lead the Photoshop Lightroom one, is now a Softie, as News.com’s Stephen Shankland reported on April 28.

The official word from Microsoft is Hamburg will be working on unnamed “user experience” efforts. My bet is Hamburg will be instrumental in helping Microsoft bring to market its Photoshop Lightroom competitor, which is codenamed “SmartFlow.”

Microsoft’s competitor to Adobe LightRoom gets another champion